Till Death Us Do Part

‘I killed your mother.’

The statement was made between wheezed breaths. Little more than a whisper sibilantly hissed through parched lips. He lay back against the white pillow exhausted by the physical and mental demands that getting the confession out had wrought.

‘I know,’ she answered.

She hadn't known, not really. She’d only suspected, but in her own mind she was convinced of the truth.

‘Drowned her in temper.’ he managed, stopping to cough up a wad of black, clotted debris from his stomach. He spat it into a stainless steel, kidney bowl.

‘I know,’ she repeated. She’d known it for a long time. Despite the facts of the trial—insufficient evidence—it was more than a suspicion, it was a conviction.

He was arrested at the scene, briefly treated like a criminal; he didn't much like that. But he had the last laugh, innocent until proven guilty. The town held their kangaroo court and found him guilty. It broke him; he lost the business and spent his final, ruined, years in a run down council house on the top estate.

‘Can you forgive me for what I've done?’

‘No.’

‘I can’t die until you forgive me.’

‘Then you’re going to live a long time in this hell. I'll never forgive you as long as I've got a hole in my arse.’

She was cold, matter of fact, true to herself even in this sterile hospital side ward. There was no malice in her voice. She’d purged the hatred years ago.

‘I'll never forgive you, you’ll get no absolution from me, I can't give it to you. By even asking me to forgive you so that you can die some-way cleansed is offensive. You robbed me of my mother and subjected me to a childhood with you—and your needs. I can't let you go in peace, but I can tell you that I don’t bear you any malice. I no longer want you to rot in hell. I don’t understand you, but I hope that your God does. I wish you well.’

She got up to leave. Over the next twelve hours the morphine would do what she’d wanted to do to him for many years.

At the door, she turned back towards the frail old man on the only bed in the room.

‘Goodbye Dad.’ He didn't answer—it had all been said.

~*~

They’d tried to call her at two minutes past three the next morning to tell her that he’d passed, they left a message and made it sound as though he'd just taken his driving test. She’d turned her phone off, not wanting to be disturbed with the information through the night. She knew they'd ring again—and they did.

Cardiac shock was the cause of death listed on the certificate.

It puzzled her, that expression. Cardiac shock. What could shock a heart into stopping.

~*~

He was tugged into awareness. He knew he was dead. He felt different. He felt like a non-human being. His memory was almost gone, his life having all but left him. The last memory he had was being terrified beyond endurance in those last seconds. But what had frightened him?

A woman was singing. She had her back to him and he couldn't see her very well; she was indistinct, clinging to the shadows of this new place. She wore a white frock like a mythical guardian angel. He was disappointed at the predictability of death. There was nothing unexpected here, then.
She reached a door, a regular, earthly door and put her arm out to open it.

Turning towards him, her hair hanging with tendrils of pondweed, she smiled at him. The smile was devoid of warmth. It was the grin of a satisfied cat when its mouse is finally cornered. She’d waited a lifetime—her lifetime— for this moment.

And he remembered what had scared him to death.